Fourth of July listening

My listening today is dominated by Ives songs. After all, I was pushing that part of his output in another thread, and I mean it! Interspersed with my usual Independence Day activities are contemplative moments to listen to the four CDs on Albany, where apparently his entire song oeuvre (including variants) is divided among four fine singers, Dora Ohrenstein, Mary Ann Hart, Paul Sperry, and William Sharp.

The 'dessert' will be the selection that Helen Boatwright recorded with John Kirkpatrick for Overtone back in 1954, latterly available (coupled with songs of Ernst Bacon) on CRI. Boatwright and Kirkpatrick did a bunch more songs for the big Ives Centennial LP box on Columbia, but this has not yet escaped Sony's dungeon. Let us hope that it, and the Gregg Smith Singers recordings of Ives choral music, will be liberated in our time.

Chez moi c'est Barbara.

<oyþ@earthlink.net>

I've seen all the fireworks I wanted, grilled and eaten all the sausages I wanted, had a pleasant visit with my ex-girlfriend (she's even happy to give me advice, at my request, about another woman I'm now interested in; isn't that civilized?), hung out with friends and watched 'The Iron Giant' on a big screen, and have finally returned home, where I'm now listening to those Ives songs with Helen Boatwright and John Kirkpatrick, on CRI. Whew!

Dunno. Could be self-defense as well

I briefly considered playing through the Gottschalk book, which I've never played byt which I've had since I started playing the piano. As it turned out, though, I managed to go the entire day without listening to any American music. Spent most of the day on Chopin's G major Prelude and the Faure Theme and Variations.

After hearing Ormandy's 'Eroica' in the afternoon, I watched what I could stand of TNT's film 'Caesar'. In brief, this was bad, bad, bad, save for the performance of Heino Ferch as Vercingetorix.

I had recorded it a few nights ago on the HD of my Panasonic DVD burner. With this device, one can skip the dull parts or sample various segments of this four-hour goose-egg. I plan to erase this thing RSN...

@posting.google.com:

I forgot to mention that TV Guide's article about this miniseries in last week's issue includes a quote from a certain USC classics professor